I feel like I should just copy/paste this response from here-on-out:
I don't need a perfect playthrough. Missing things is ok. I don't need every companion in my party and 4 is a fine limit for me. I look forward to experiencing events and play styles that I've missed on new playthroughs when I make different choices.
If the story you experiment is totally inconsistent and incomprehensible because you miss too many important things... That's bad.
+1. Again, Larian strikes me as a studio that cares about the gameplay a lot, and in my opinion a little too much. It's much more important to them to give the player options to explore and and experiment than to make sure all the story flags works into a cohesive narrative. And again, it's not necessarily bad, I'm sure there's an audience for it, but it's just not for me.
Yes, I just rested once, and I had only few companion interactions so all of them feel very shallow to the point that I care less about them than for any other companion I had in any other RPG. They all just shove it in my face that they have a very deep story attached, yet it does not come up, unless I rest. Now technically I should rest before every fight, so I have all resources available. However people naturally do not like to rest a lot, as many feel it is cheesing the system. It also takes you out of the game completely, with it being a whole different screen and also location.
So they created a paradox it seems. It is something that brings forth the interaction with companions as well as parts of the story, it is also elemental to the gameplay. Yet players are reluctant to use it and therefore feel like they are missing out. Now I suppose the whole thing will be somewhat resolved, but right now it is really not satisfactory.
